Thursday, 15 September 2011

A Russian Experiment

Fascinating article in the New York Times about one family's move to Moscow and their experiences in a Russian private school. Apart from the discussions about the linguistic challenges (3 non Russian speaking American children) and the cultural differences, the teaching style employed is extremely interesting as exemplified here:

New Humanitarian had standard subjects, like history and math, and Danya
had many hours of homework a week. But Bogin added courses like
antimanipulation, which was intended to give children tools to decipher
commercial or political messages. He taught a required class called myshleniye,
which means “thinking,” as in critical thinking. It was based in part
on the work of a dissident Soviet educational philosopher named Georgy
Shchedrovitsky, who argued that there were three ways of thinking:
abstract, verbal and representational. To comprehend the meaning of
something, you had to use all three.

When I asked Bogin to explain Shchedrovitsky, he asked a question. “Does
2 + 2 = 4? No! Because two cats plus two sausages is what? Two cats.
Two drops of water plus two drops of water? One drop of water.”

From there, the theories became more complex. In practice, though, the
philosophy meant that Bogin delighted in barraging children with word
problems and puzzles to force them to think broadly. It was the opposite
of the rote memorization of the Soviet system.

At dinnertime, the kids taunted me with riddles. “Ten crows are sitting
on a fence,” Arden announced. “A cat pounces and eats one crow. How many
are left?” “Umm, nine,” I said, fearing a trap. “No, none!” she
gleefully responded. “Do you really think that after one crow is eaten,
the others are going to stick around?”